180 ASCENT TO EL-DEIR. CHAPTER XIX. PETRA. Ascent to El-Deir.-The Temple.-Remarkable Ruin.-View from the Summit. Staircase in the Mountain Side.-City Proper.-Ancient Population of Petra.-Question as to the Excavations.-Historical Sketch.-Question as to Identity of Petra.-Scripture Prophecies Relating to Petra.-Their Fulfilment.-Causes of its Ancient Splendour.-Decay.-Overstraining of Prophecy. Ir now remained for us, before ending our examination of the cliffs surrounding the city, to visit El-Deir, the most splendid monument at Petra except the Khuzneh. The reader will see that it lies in the northwestern extremity,* at a considerable elevation above the city area. Travellers generally ascend to it by means of a ravine, which descends irregularly from the heights into the northwest angle of the area, in which steps are hewn out of the rock for a great part of the way. We ascended, however, by the chasm through which the brook passes into the western cliff, and then, by a lateral ravine, marked somewhat too distinctly in the Plan, reached a part of the hill which we were able to clamber over with some difficulty. Dr. Robinson remarks on this passage as follows: "We endeavoured to find the lateral chasm marked on Laborde's plan as leading up towards the right quite to the Deir. There are short chasms enough in that direction, but none extending to the Deir, which, indeed, seems to be inaccessible from this quarter, as we found by our own experience, and from the testimony of Arab shepherds on the spot." It is entirely correct that the gorge does not extend quite * Plan No. 11. THE TEMPLE.-REMARKABLE RUIN. 181 to the Deir; but yet we did obtain access from the hill in this direction, though with much toil and some danger. Gaining the summit, a pretty vale opened suddenly before us, imbosomed in the mountain, with a fair prospect west and south. We here obtained an oblique view of the temple, which is hewn out of the cliff on the northeast of the vale, and hastening forward, we sat down on the rocks opposite to it, with an esplanade richly covered with vegetation intervening between us and the façade. El-Deir is, like the Khuzneh, a strong relief, sculptured out of a deep recess cut in the yellow sandstone of the cliff, which does not overhang it, however. Its general effect is very similar to that of the Khuzneh, but it is in inferior taste, and has not the advantages of position. enjoyed by that remarkable monument. Its architecture is quite fantastic. I found the length of the front to be 136 feet the apparent elevation is not in proportion, as the bases of the columns are buried by soil brought down from the adjacent heights. The interior consists of a single room, about forty feet square and twenty-five high, without any kind of ornament; there is an arched recess in the back wall; a raised platform below, with steps leading up to it at each end. These were evidently cut long after the monument was finished, probably for the purpose of adapting the room to use as a Chris tian church. Our attention was now attracted by a remarkable rock, covered with ruins, on the opposite side of the plateau from El-Deir, in the southwest. Crossing the esplanade, we found the hill perpendicular in front; but at the northwest corner are the remains of a broad stairway, partly cut in the rock, and partly built up with masonry, by which we ascended. At the top we found that VOL. I.-Q 182 VIEW FROM THE SUMMIT. the rock had been cut away, leaving a platform in front, on which yet remain the bases of a double range of columns, which must have stood on the very verge of the precipice, forming a noble portico, overlooking the grand façade of El-Deir. Behind this platform the rock is excavated into a large chamber, which probably formed the cella of a temple, to which the portico was the entrance. In the back wall is a niche, carefully sculptured, but not in the best possible taste. In the wall above the niche, and also on each side, were many small square holes, which might have received the frames for a curtain or veil to the adytum. On the whole, this excavated chamber resembles a heathen temple more than anything we saw about Petra. But this was not all the ornament of this single rock. the temple was excavated, and which rose high above the portico, was itself the basis of another pile of building. Ascending to the top, we found the remains of such a pile lying in confusion around. It must have been a striking object in the days of its ancient splendour. First, the rock smoothed into a perpendicular precipice; then cut away into a terrace for the reception of a double portico; then stretching up again to the summit, and then surmounted by another pile! What wealth and perseverance these "dwellers in the rock" must have possessed! The mass from which From this summit we had a fine view of the vale of El-Deir. Its surface is strewn with square stones, probably the ruins of a town whose population once worshipped in these temples and gave life to these mountains. The sepulchral chambers which abound in the neighbourhood.confirm this conclusion. This was probably one of the suburbs of Petra, built after the population of the place became too great for its narrow lim its. STAIRCASE. THE CITY PROPER. 183 Probably there are more such spots yet unexplored amid the many ravines and gardens which no European has yet visited. The descent from El-Deir to Petra is almost as great a wonder as anything else in this city of miracles. One can hardly conceive the labour that this approach must have cost. Many hundred feet of staircase, partly cut in the solid rock, must have formerly afforded access from the town to this temple and the sepulchres around it. Everywhere, in this marvellous avenue, can be seen flights of steps, cut in the living rock, and leading, on either hand, to retired resting-places of the dead, or to temples and monuments now unknown. Centuries ago this solitary and ruinous avenue was alive with thronging crowds-the gay, the grave, the great. It could not but cause us sad and melancholy thoughts to tread it. So complete a destruction is not to be found elsewhere of a great city so lately standing in its pride. Having thus taken the reader rapidly along with us in our exploration of the cliffs that surround Petra, we beg him to return with us to our point of observation (F) near the mouth of the Sîk, in the southeast angle of the city, that we may take a rapid glance together at the city proper. It is absolutely covered with the ruins of dwellings, pavements, arches, and bridges. The number of fragments of public edifices is almost incredible, while, without doubt, more have been swept away. Of all the ancient edifices, the remains of but three are standing. On the high ground south of the brook stands a lone column, in the midst of its prostrate fellows, which belonged to a temple whose form and dimensions may still be traced. Near the western cliff (No. 10 in the Plan) are the ruins called the Palace of Pharaoh, of which the walls remain almost entire. Several of the 184 ANCIENT POPULATION OF PETRA. columns which adorn its front are still standing. Part of a triumphal arch (No. 8) is to be seen a little east of the Palace of Pharaoh. Besides these, there are no standing monuments, but piles of columns, hewn stones, and sculptured fragments strew the ground in every direction. It is clear, from the remains and from all the appearances about Petra, that its population must have been very dense. Dr. Robinson supposes that within the area there was space enough to afford room, “in an Oriental city, for the accommodation of thirty or forty thousand inhabitants." The extension of the city southward, over Aaron's Plains, might swell the number to 45,000; and if we take into consideration, still farther, the suburbs which lay in the smaller valleys in the immediate vicinity, as that of El-Deir and others, perhaps more populous still. We may, perhaps with reason, estimate the population of the city, in the days of its glory, at from 70,000 to 100,000. The question has often oeen started whether the countless chambers cut in the rocks about Petra were really sepulchres, or whether they may not, or at least a part of them, have been originally dwellings. Of course this question occupied our attention as we wandered amid these strange defiles, once peopled with the living or the dead. The fact that no skeleton, or even fragment of one, has been found in any of the recesses, seems to militate against the hypothesis that they were tombs; and some suppose that the representation of the inhabitants, by the prophets Obadiah and Jeremiah, as "dwellers in the clefts of the rock," intimates the use of these excavations as dwellings. On the other hand, many of them have niches for receptacles of the dead, and their whole appearance clearly shows them to have been |